15 Claims From Trump’s Speech to CPAC, Fact-Checked

President Trump addressed the annual gathering of conservatives for over two hours on Saturday. Here’s a fact-check.

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In a rambling two-hour speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, President Trump repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the investigation into Russian collusion during his presidential campaign.CreditCreditPete Marovich for The New York Times

“When they charge 40 percent tariffs on our cars going into China, and we charge them nothing coming to our country. When they raise their tariff from 10 percent to 25 percent then 40 percent, and they said to me, ‘We expected somebody would call and say, you can’t nobody called so we just left it.’”

This is misleading.

President Trump’s account of China’s tariff rates and his role in relation to them is distorted.

The United States charges a tariff of 2.5 percent — not “nothing” — on foreign car imports and raised the rate on Chinese vehicles to 27.5 percent over the summer.

“The Green New Deal, I encourage it, I think it is really something that they should promote. They should work hard on, it is something the country needs desperately. They have to go out and get it, but I will take the other side of that argument, only because I am mandated to. But they should stay with that. Never change. No planes. No energy. When the wind stops blowing, that’s the end of your electric.”

False.

Mr. Trump has escalated a previously exaggerated claim to a false one. The Green New Deal is a proposal by liberal Democrats to combat climate change. It was introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts.

The legislation does not call for eliminating airplanes, though a draft summary of the plan on Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s website did refer to getting rid of “emissions from cows or air travel.” Her staff has since retracted the post and said that it was incomplete and published by accident.

False.

The Revenue Act of 1913, or the Underwood Tariff Act, reduced tariff rates to 25 percent from roughly 40 percent but did not eliminate them completely. Tariffs still accounted for nearly one-third of federal revenue in 1915. Rates were then raised in 1922 and 1930, before liberalization became a consistent trend in American trade policy. Tariffs have generated less than 2 percent of annual federal revenue for the past 70 years.

What Was Said

“So we fired Comey. Schumer who called for his resignation many times. Podesta, I believe that day ... called for his resignation.”

This is exaggerated.

Many Democratic lawmakers had criticized James B. Comey, the former director of the F.B.I., for his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server before he was fired by Mr. Trump. But the two men the president singled out had not called for Mr. Comey to step down.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, said that he had lost confidence in Mr. Comey, but he did not say that Mr. Comey should be ousted. John D. Podesta, the former Clinton campaign manager, called Mr. Comey’s handling of the investigation a “mistake” that broke with precedent but specifically declined to press for his resignation.

What Was Said

“We never have empty seats.”

False.

While Mr. Trump does draw large, passionate crowds at events and often fills overflow rooms, seats have been empty on occasion. For example, at a May 2017 rally in Harrisburg, Pa., Mr. Trump drew a crowd of roughly 9,500 people in an arena that could hold 11,431, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. The New York Times reported that Mr. Trump had privately expressed disappointment with empty chairs at an August 2018 rally in West Virginia.

What Was Said

“I flew to Iraq — first time I left the White House because I stayed in the White House for months and months because I wanted the Democrats to get back from their vacations from Hawaii and these other places.”

False.

Mr. Trump visited troops in Iraq on Dec. 26, but that was far from his first outing in months. He traveled to the National Cathedral in Washington on Christmas Eve and went to Arlington National Cemetery on Dec. 15. Other trips took him to the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia on Dec. 8, a law enforcement event in Missouri on Dec. 7, the Group of 20 meeting in Argentina from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, and campaign rallies in Mississippi on Nov. 26. He also celebrated Thanksgiving at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Other claims

Mr. Trump also made at least 9 other inaccurate claims that The Times has previously fact-checked:

He understated the number of Electoral College votes Mrs. Clinton won as 223. (It was 232.)

He misleadingly claimed that the news media would have deemed the level of job creation and reduction in food stamp participation “impossible.” (The numbers are on par with figures reachedbefore he took office.)

He falsely claimed military spending had reached levels “nobody’s ever heard of.” (Congress authorized more money for the military several years under President Barack Obama.)